The Effort (from Shabbat Page 22/8/14

You are not stimulated by the world as it is; rather you control what happens, interpreting all that happens correctly, attributing everything to “There is none else besides Him,” “The Good and Beneficent,” but, but (!) you are working on this; you don’t forget. It is as he tells you, “Before you go to the market, and after you return from the market.” This means that you don’t forget about the “good and beneficent.” You know that all of the work depends on you, on your efforts. This means that when you are working, you cannot say, “But everything is from the Creator and this is also from the Creator.” This means that essentially, what you are saying is that this is not from the Creator, it is about your effort. This is the difficulty that he wants to explain in the letter there. Before a person goes to work, he must remove himself from everything that comes. After he returns, he says, “Even if I had stayed at home, I would have earned the same amount.” That’s it. That is the effort. That is the whole idea here. Usually we give up the effort. We say, “Ahah, The Creator will straighten it all out,” and then we fall into this world, and then we begin to pay attention to what is happening here and depend on Obama, on Hamas, on everything. Even in dissemination, you must see that everything that is arranged, the Creator arranged it for you. You will bring some power of faith to every place where you are found in contact with Him.  

From the Morning Lesson, The Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 18, August 15, 2014